I won’t be analyzing as much as I did with the previous questions here (success), here (advice), and here (change) because of lack of categorization. I also won’t be sharing much of my insight here. That’s for the next articles on this question topic.

What is personal growth?

For now, we’re just going to cover a basic overview of personal growth and what it is.

Personal growth is similar to success in which there is a definition, but there is no one way that it looks like. Just like success looks different for everyone, so does personal growth. It looks different, but it’s still similar. There are definitely patterns and similarities.

Unlike success though, personal growth doesn’t have a definition given by Google. Nor did personal development. I only found personal development in one online dictionary with the definition: “development as an individual” which is very vague.

Personal growth is a lot of things.

Personal growth can be applied to all areas of life – academically, socially, professionally and “personally.” What can be confusing is that personal growth can be a category in personal growth. If you’ve ever used a success or goal-setting journal, you can often find goal categories of finances, health, relationships, career, and personal growth. That personal growth category can mean emotional and mental health or spiritual growth or hobbies and creativity. But it’s a lot more than that.

I like to see personal growth with very few limitations and endless possibilities. Personal growth is anything that genuinely improves your life. Let’s go over, though, what personal growth is not.

What personal growth is not:

Personal growth is not perfection nor a destination.

It’s not about being better than everyone else.

Momentary, meaning it onlybenefits you in the moment

Personal growth is not just about you or for you.

I noticed a response to the question about personal growth said this: “Realizing your faults and taking an initiative to change this.”

There were many others similar to this response as well.

Personal growth is not just about “fixing” yourself or recognizing your weaknesses. It’s also about loving and accepting yourself wholly and unconditionally. Recognizing your strengths and appreciating them.

Personal growth is about improving, whether it’s a weakness or a strength.

It’s about being grateful for who you are and what you do, what you contribute to the world. Recognizing your faults, things you don’t like about yourself, your mistakes, your weakness and instead of ignoring them or beating yourself up for them, it’s about accepting them and loving yourself regardless.

Loving yourself is not narcissism though, and it’s not even confidence. It’s about being on your own side. It’s about being a friend to yourself.

Sometimes personal growth doesn’t necessarily mean changing certain weaknesses and things you don’t like about yourself. It can sometimes be about changing how you see those things about yourself.

Personal growth helps you get to know yourself better and improves your relationship with yourself.

Every relationship starts with a relationship with the self. The more fulfilling the relationship is with yourself, the more fulfilling the relationships are with others.

Is personal growth just about the self? And is it just personal?

What I found interesting about personal growth and the answers that people say is that personal growth is about you, but it’s not just about you.

This answer really struck out:

“I have been much more charitable lately. Personal growth is helping others and being less selfish.”

Oftentimes, with personal growth we can get caught up into making it just about ourselves. Our goal should not just be to improve our own lives, but the lives of others around us in the process.

Successful personal growth should not just bring value to your own life, but value to the world. It’s being an effective and useful member of society.

One of our goals with personal growth should be to have a positive impact and influence on those around us. It’s human nature as a social species. We survive and thrive that way.

Yes, we should prioritize our personal wants and needs with our goals, but it shouldn’t end there.

In an article about online business ideas by Ramit Sethi, he asked people why they wanted to start an online business. He showed examples of the majority of answers he received and pointed out how ME-focused they were and how few of the responses were about providing value and helping others.

This doesn’t only apply to business though.

The guy who says, “I want to be a better lover/partner/communicator.” will probably be more successful at their goal and fulfilled with the achievement of it than the one who says, “I want to get laid.”

I find that so much of personal growth misses one of the most important factors for personal growth—relationships. It’s a separate category. The Love, Romance, Dating, and Relationship category. Yet, all it really is about personal growth.

After my first breakup, I started reading an ebook from Amazon about dating and love. I was shocked when nearly 90% of the book was about personal growth. The area of relationships is probably one of my highest researched and valued subjects in personal growth.

I had always wondered why so many of the world’s richest and most “successful” people don’t succeed in relationships. Tony Robbins said this himself and Harvard Professor, in this TED Talk too. I made a commitment to myself years ago that I would succeed in that area.

Personal growth is not just about the self. I also did not intend the name for my blog, ReachingSelf to be just about the individual self. You can read about that here.

I believe that healthy personal growth as a society helps others and society as a whole. People who are happier and more wholesome tend to be more likely to help others.

“Hurt people hurt people.”

If people learn to help and heal themselves, they can in turn desire and be able to act in accordance with others.

Sometimes we can try to help others, but it backfires as demonstrated in the article Why You Should Stop Giving Advice. So the best thing we can do is be there for others with kindness and support and do the same for ourselves.

One of the most important factors, probably the most important, to happiness and success is our relationships. This article proves this point with some heartwarming and eye-opening studies about love and relationships.

The best personal growth is done with others around you.

True personal growth is a self-fulfilling cycle. The more we grow, the more we benefit society. And the more we benefit society in a healthy way, the more we grow. It’s certainly a win-win.

However, it’s not a measure to other people. It’s only a measure to yourself. Who you were in the past vs. who you are today vs. who you’re going to become.

Why personal growth?

Personal growth is positive change in one’s life. That should be everyone’s goal. I discuss more in depth why change (and personal growth) is a good thing here even though many will resist and fear it.

Some people will push away personal growth because it can get scary and ugly. It’s not supposed to be butterflies and rainbows. That’s not realistic. We often have to face things that we don’t want to face.

Studies show that we don’t really know ourselves that well and that most of us tend to overestimate our abilities.

When we overestimate, it means that our reality is worse.

In an episode of Mind Field, a YouTube premium show, the host of the show is going to test out a psychedelic drug that recent studies have shown to have certain positive effects such as a greater sense of identity and spirituality.

Prior to taking the drug, he talks about his fears saying that he believes he’s happy, what if taking the drug makes him realize things about himself and his life that will depress him. He gives examples like “maybe I’m not so close to my mom” and things like that.

This is where the term blissfully ignorant comes in. The problem is that it’s an illusion. It’s a false sense of security.

At some level, we know. It’s like when we see the red flags in hindsight after a failed friendship and relationship, but we chose to ignore it. Not only is the fact that it’s still there that can do us harm. But the fact that we know or that we knew of the fact that does harm to our self-esteem.

What’s interesting is that although it’s scary and it may scare or disgust us at first, when we become okay with it and accept it, we become happier.

In the book Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness, Melissa Dahl shares the story of a research group that brought and introduces mirrors to a village of people that had never seen their own reflections before. When the people of the village were shown their reflections in a mirror, they would flinch, show frightened expressions on their faces, and duck their heads. Only three days after though, the people would seek out the mirrors and started grooming themselves in front of the mirrors and would enjoy being in front of the mirrors and n camera.

This shows that when we gain self-awareness and learn things about ourselves, it’s scary at first, but then we either focus on changing that part of ourselves or we learn to accept it. And contrary to the idea of blissful ignorance, we are happier when we are not ignorant to ourselves. We realize with personal growth, we live better lives even if it doesn’t always seem like it.

Personal growth is and should be a natural part of everyone’s life to live a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life.

Below is a list of the featured responses from the survey.

Featured Responses

“Personal growth to me means becoming a better version of yourself.

Becoming more genuine and being more of yourself. And there’s nothing more important than being more of who you are!”

“Being better today than yesterday, and striving to be better tomorrow than today. Now – What ‘zactly does “better” mean? Now THAT is the question. For me, it means becoming more of a positive influence and less of a negative one. So then, personal growth for me means that I help others along a little bit more every day than I did the previous day. Unfortunately, some days you conquer the mountain and some days the mountain conquers you. But you get up the next day, shake off the rubble and do it all over again.”

“Personal Growth is the pursuit of positive activities, experiences, and education. The process expands your consciousness and opens you up to possibilities far beyond your currently perceived limits and boundaries. Without this, I don’t know where I would be today.”

“To me, personal growth is improving at least 1% each day in the following areas of my life: Physical – If the body isn’t healthy, nothing else will work. Mental – Building a bullet-proof mindset via visualization and affirmations Emotional – Building and nurturing mutually beneficial relationships, pursuing passion projects Spiritual – Achieving a sense of inner peace and quieting the inner turmoil by meditating every day and also expressing gratitude for something new each day The above is a practice I learned from James Altucher , and it has been working for me very, very well. Instead of trying to achieve too much, within a short period of time, by focusing on the above, you tend to grow in all the important areas, which in turn will gear one to growth in other areas of life as well!”

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson Personal growth to me means this: It’s about become a better person as a whole. This consists of striving for improvement just by 1% daily. Some areas of expertise may include writing, practicing yoga, or communicating effectively. It’s a constant work-in-progress, which encompasses any underdeveloped abilities I want to further expand. To grow, I ask myself: “What expertise do I want to practice and improve on?” Two other examples of skills include leadership and sales. Even becoming a great salsa dancer takes practice and effort. The sky’s the limit. On my journey of personal development, I inevitably will discover new abilities I want to acquire. Continually investing in myself and implementing that knowledge is the key to personal growth. It’s also an integral part of becoming the best person I can be. I hope this helps.”

“To me, it’s what makes us or breaks us as a human being. We always work on how to grow within our jobs, our bodies on working out & our minds by studying school material. But personal growth or how I prefer to call it personal development is far beyond all of that. It’s what they don’t teach us in school. I like to call it our philosophy. Our philosophy changes once we decide to change. It determines whether or not we’ll grow in every aspect of our life and without it I don’t think I would be where I am today. I used to blame everyone else but myself prior to my personal development, and I wouldn’t understand why. I would ask myself why did he get the job and didn’t? How come he has more money or a better car or why is he smarter than I am? I was so busy asking why him and why not me? Until I realized…. Why not me? That’s when it hit me. The only thing that separates him or her over me is our philosophy in life. The moment I changed that is the moment that changed my life. I believe it’ll change yours as well.”

“Bettering yourself, yeah. Like and just like it’s being the best you that you can be. That’s honestly what it is. Yeah. Not driving to be perfect or anything, but just being the best you.”

“Um… Just building yourself up to a higher level, always pushing yourself to be better, never settling for less. A lot of things. Bettering yourself so it reflects off others that they can learn from you. And learning in general, just knowledge never stops. Growing, you know so. Education never stops.”

“Personal growth means learning from your lessons and other people’s lessons. If you do something wrong, you learn what’s right, and the next time that thing comes up, you do the right thing. Learning what’s good for you, what’s bad for you. And just becoming a better person for yourself and for others around you.”

“To be better than your past self. That’s what, like, it just means, like, be better than your past self. Like what you achieve before in, like, in the past, like achieve 20 times more than that in the future. That’s just to be better.”

“Hehehe. Personal growth to me means realizing the areas that you actually need growth in and not, you know, kind of pushing them to the side or saying, “Oh no, I don’t need this or I need that.” And working on it every single day, you know, to change it, to become better. I think it’s a constant thing. Personal growth has to be a constant thing not just like a “Oh, I hope in a year I’m, you know, in a year I hope to be this person.” No, I think it should start every day. You know, obviously little by little, but personal growth can I think it’s—it depends on—it’s kind of like success. It’s kind of like how you want it to be. You know I mean… I mean hah that’s a hard… It’s almost like a not a defined thing like some people, personal growth can be “Oh I want to, I want to not eat 3 times a day. I want to cut back.” And then someone’s personal growth can be like “Oh I want to, you know, be head of or be manager of this place or that place.” You know. I think it depends but I think as long as you work on it every single day I think that’s important.”

“Personal growth means, to me, that every day you look at as a new experience to find something new, learn something more. Either share that with someone or, you know, learn from someone’s experience that they share with you. Whether it’s good or bad. I just find that every day I just try to grow that way. I do like to analyze my experiences. Not necessarily daily, but I do reflect on them over time. I try to get to deal with them quicker. Try to stay a little bit more focused to where, you know, certain goals whether it’s health, financial, relationship, emotional. And I try to be more and more difficult on myself to push myself further to achieving those goals.”

“It means always being in the pursuit of fulfilling who you’re meant to be. Who you’re meant to become. Creating yourself, you know, exploring. Just… Just trying to make yourself better every day. You know. Just working hard to…to truly find out why you’re here. That’s what I think personal growth is.”

“Personal growth… It’s becoming better than you could ever imagine yourself being. It’s not being the best. It’s not being in comparison to someone else you know. It’s like surrounding yourself around people who are successful, people who are doing things with their lives. And the same thing with personal growth is that you just kind of have to just look at yourself in the mirror, like take a step back and really reflect on who you are, who your friends are, who are those that you love, who haven’t you loved lately, who haven’t you spoken to. Personal growth is… is like… I want to compare it to like a seed growing into a beautiful tree blossoming with its fruits and its flowers and seasons. It’s like you kind of just keep—you just keep growing. And you know there are leaves that wither but those for the tree—it’s good for the tree. Because it doesn’t need those leaves. And that’s the same thing with personal growth is you have to take some bad habits away. There are habits that we can obtain whether good or bad. And if you’re doing things that kind of are stunting your growth, you’re not really personally growing, and you’re not moving in a direction that’s healthy for you, that is good for you, that keeps your mind stable. And personal growth—if you didn’t have to figure that out, you have to take a look at what’s wrong. And for a tree, it’s gotta take out those leaves that are dead and they just… You just trim ‘em. And they just keep growing. They keep the best leaves on them, anything they take—nutrients—to continue forth in being a tree.”

“Always, always asking the hard questions. As in, you know, by doing so, you always end up chasing the profound. Right? And so, you pose instead of—It’s always tempting, right? It’s always tempting to ask the easy questions to yourself just so that there’s the assumption of growth. There’s illusion of growth. And I think sometimes the pitfall is like we do that to ourselves to make ourselves feel better. And feel like we are always growing and moving forward. But, you know, to me, personal development or personal growth—and I think you should always be growing. I don’t think you should ever not grow. No matter what the age is. And obviously, I’m in my latter twenties, the last year of my twenties. One thing that I do pride in myself is always asking the hard questions. I’ve always asked the hard questions. Yeah. Even though I might not like the answer. But I think that that’s what makes sometimes life far more richer than… Well, see, the illusion is that if by not asking the question, your life may come off as not rich as you want. But in actuality, by asking the hard questions, your life actually gets richer as a result. If that makes sense.”

“Learning. Moving forward but being able to look back and see that things are different as a result of intention.”

“Personal growth means to me is knowing who you are because you have to know yourself in order to grow.”

“It means that I am always improving and learning.”

“Being mentally stable.”

“investing in yourself.”

“continuing to challenge yourself and not just settle or get complacent.”

“education.”

“Learning and applying something new and becoming more effective at whatever you choose to do.”

“Doing more than ask of you.”

“Learning, developing and moving forward. Not being complacent.”

“Overcoming obstacles and learning.”

“Becoming a more fulfilled individual.”

“Character development.”

“the ability to understand different outlooks on how things should function. Putting myself in other people’s shoes.”

“It means being able to be the best you can be. Looking for others before oneself. Being able to be confident, courteous, and able to achieve personal goals.”

“It means I never stop evolving. Life has been a series of changes and challenges, and I am certain this never stops.”

“Learning to appreciate many different points of view.”

“Broadening, enhancing, or introducing new skills.”

“Definitely not measuring myself against others. That’s something you generally find out later. I measure myself against myself. Am I better? Have I helped? Have I made a difference, if only to a small handful of people?”

“Learning new things and becoming a better person with each new stage of life.”

“Becoming the best person you can be.”

“Learning new things.”

“learning something new every day and growing as a person in all phases of your life.”

“Try to learn something new every day or at least every week. Also to serve others, even in a small way. Smile at a stranger or say good morning to them. These are the things that have helped me grow, as a person.”

“Achieving goals.”

“Continuing to learn new life skills and continued spiritual growth.”

“learning.”

“Learning new skills and having new experiences. Meeting new people and considering new ideas and viewpoints.”

“learning new things.”

“Taking advantage of learning via YouTube, Google, etc.”

“Growing in all aspects of who you are and what makes you, you.”

“When you learn to change for the better.”

“For me, personal growth is about always striving for more, more education, more knowledge, more experiences. I don’t ever want to be stagnant.”

“It means being flexible to change, to be self-critical and improve, to learn new skills, to learn about other cultures and ways of approaching life, work, religion, etc. It means working at maintain existing relationships with people around me and meeting new people. It means living a healthy lifestyle and finding happiness through balance.”

“The ability to learn at any age. The ability to correct your mistakes and avoid making the same ones.”

“Knowledge acquisition.”

“No matter how much you may know there is always room to learn and grow, you always have to be open to evolve and grow because life is ever changing. And if you don’t change with it, you can become not as effective or obsolete.”

“Learning to accept who you are as a person or deciding to better yourself until you do.”

“I’m in. And personal growth means being a better person and more efficient in business and life.”

“The process of improving oneself through such activities as enhancing employment skills, increasing consciousness, and building wealth.”

“Learning from your mistakes not dwelling on the past – take it as lessons learned. Move on don’t dwell. Take on change don’t be afraid.”

“Learning to become who you are.”

“Better/more substantial relationships.”

“Being honest with yourself about your faults. Fixing what you can. Always wanting to learn something new, develop new skills.”

“always learning and experiencing new things.”

“Lifelong learning.”

“CHANGE.”

“Self-actualization.”

“Setting goals, learning new things.”

“Getting stronger every day–whether it be physically, emotionally, financially, intellectually…just make sure you improve yourself every day. One seemingly small thing times 365 ends up being a huge deal over a year’s time.”

“Becoming a person that my kids can look up to.”

“Understanding and accepting self and others; be supportive of self; courage to recover from adversity; accepting what is; keep moving forward.”

“Learning and incorporating something into my life that was previously unknown to me.”

“Greater capacity and more effectiveness.”

“Being a better human being.”

“becoming more self-aware and working to be a better person in one’s relationships with other individuals and with the world community.”

“DO something about it. Grousing is a waste of time, effort and bores anyone listening. DO something and growth comes along as a backfill. Story: a farmer had a baby steer that needed to be lifted over the fence to stay safe from the bulls at night. Every day the farmer lifted the steer calf over the fence. Not even realizing it…without effort as the calf grew the farmer is lifting a bull steer up over a fence. You won’t always know you are growing. You can only see it in the rearview mirror.”

“Expanding your relationship with the world.”

“A better understanding of self.”

“Never stop learning.”

“it means what makes you grow, what makes you talented, experienced, what impacts you, what affects you.”

“becoming more self-accepting and happier.”

“Constantly improving myself and not becoming complacent.”

“Being alert to opportunity when it appears; try to learn something new each and every day.”

“It means learning. About yourself, about other things, about things that interest or intrigue you.”

“Learning, doing, experiencing”

“Learning”

“Becoming a better you.”

“Reaching for the sky.”

“Growth at all levels, personally, academically, professionally.”

“Always learning.”

“It means to continue to learn things that are meaningful and exciting and keep me feeling alive.”

“Being open to learning and trying new things while valuing what you already have and do.”

“It means becoming the best me I can be for myself and for others.”

“Making mistakes and learning from them and then making necessary changes for a better life!”

“To grow and become a better person than you were yesterday.”

“Learning new things.”

“Advancing.”

“Always bettering yourself.”

“Knowledge, empathy, happiness in helping others.”

“Looking back and seeing how far I have come.”

“Learn by your mistakes.”

“living and never stop learning.”

“Evolving from your core self spiritually mentally physically.”

“Keep on learning and trying new things.”

“improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential.”

“Continue your education, not necessarily by going to a school but by researching and learning on your own. Use books, computers, internet and talk to older people to learn what they know. Expand your learning horizons to stay interested, and growth will keep you in touch with the past, present, and future.”

“Doing better tomorrow than yesterday.”

“Becoming better versions of yourself as time goes on.”

“never stop listening to the outlook of others.”

“Understanding and loving self and others.”

“You must take time to love and learn yourself.”

“To still be pursuing something, living on purpose.”

“never stop learning.”

“Never stop learning.”

“Building upon personal experiences, both positive and negative, to develop one’s individual potential.”

“Being a better version of myself every day.”

“Improving abilities to acquire insights and knowledge.”

“Evolving and further developing specific areas of my life that are important to me, both in the moment and long term.”

“Learning what is really important in life is the best personal growth one can hope for.”

“Learning what you need to know to become more successful.”

“Being able to do many things well for personal and world around me betterment.”

“continuing to learn and do.”

“Successful in your personal life as well as professional life.”

“Bettering yourself and helping others. Realizing what is important in life.”

“learning to like yourself, and living to your full potential.”

“moving up.”

“Becoming a better version of myself.”

“Understanding self & others.”

“Having a philosophic mind; understanding and having love for others.”

“Learning something new.”

“becoming the person you want to be.”

“Learning, helping and being successful.”

“Becoming better as a human being.”

“Bettering myself.”

“Being a better person than you were yesterday.”

“Personal growth is meeting new people, learning about other cultures, blah blah, blah. Most important thing is that you are at a stage of life where you have formed your own opinion of the world but aren’t afraid of changing your opinions. Man/woman will have their own opinions, but a boy/girl will tell you opinions they learnt from their peers, teachers, and parents. Learn from others and shape it in your own way to fit your world.”

“Personal growth is the pursuit of positive activities, experiences, and education.”

“Personal growth to me starts within…in the sense you need to start loving yourself before others. Then experience life all that you can so you know your likes and dislikes, learn about new cultures and different ways of life.”

“Discovering who we are. Lifelong learning and striving for growth.”

“Learning different things from all aspects of life and having those things make a positive effect on me.”

“Becoming a better person than I was yesterday.”

“There are things we can change and most if not all of them have to be with our own being, that would be body, mind, and spirit. So improving what we can improve in the sense of our own self is personal development.”

“Learning constantly.”

“Feeling like life is one with you, that you are useful in your work, family, friends, etc., and at the same time you love yourself.”

“Improving and growing myself, changing my beliefs for good and having confidence in what I believe in and what I have accomplished.”

“Growing in all aspects of oneself.”

“Be a better person in all aspects.”

“Personal growth is looking back at the person you were last year or last month or last week and liking the person you are today even more than that person back then.”

“To me, it means to be able to embrace yourself in all possible ways. It is a journey that never ends because once we solve that one thing, something new appears, but it is a process in which you embrace your flaws, and stop blaming yourself for them. You try to learn how to love them, and most of all, you begin to love your own strengths. You get to a state from which you can learn anything and have a positive, active attitude about life.”

“Constantly tuning into my higher self, confronting the truth about myself and others, and finding better ways to conduct my life. Studying successful people. Letting go of the ego and negative emotions (while still acknowledging them and allowing myself to feel). Truly growing by real energy and focus on the realities of my mind and soul.”

“Completing goals. Even the baby step goals count as personal growth. Anything that helps you work towards the long-term goal you strive for.”

“Becoming more efficient and productive every day towards making an impact.”

“Finding what is the most important to you in the few sections of your life (relationships, health, career, spirituality, etc.) and working to make the things that light you up in your everyday life and your daily motivation.”

“Always being honest with yourself and following your values.”

“Unlocking potential and finding true self.”

“Always striving to be the best you you can be.”

“molding yourself and your life to become the person you want to be and staying true to yourself along the way.”

“Working on appreciating yourself as you are as you learn how you can improve on the things that don’t bring you happiness.”

“Continuing to learn and improve myself, be more valuable for everyone around me.”

“Understanding the ways of my behavior and learning to control my life in order to fulfill my goals.”

“Learning new things, developing new talents or simply taking part in new experiences.”

“Learning. Changing. Growing”

“Always advancing by educating, training and loving yourself.”

“To make small changes each day to become a better version of myself.”

“Being a better me in any/all facets of life.”

“To become a better version of who I am now.”

“Personal growth is when you master having a balanced life and focusing on things I can control.”

“personal growth to me is always trying to be the best I can be. Life is happiness and not being perfect but being kind and enjoying my life.”

“never stop learning.”

“Personal growth means trying not to make the same mistakes twice. It also means to learn something new and to apply what you have learned.”

“It’s my daily lifestyle.”

“Listening and learning from various resources such as conversation, books, experiences to learn better ways of being. Advancing and pushing oneself to be better than before. Balance and surrounding yourself with mentors that can help you achieve this.”

“I have been much more charitable lately. Personal growth is helping others and being less selfish.”

“Finding the areas I️ feel insecure about and either changing them or learning to love them.”

“Learning from your mistakes not dwelling on the past – take it as lessons learned. Move on don’t dwell. Take on change don’t be afraid.”

“Learning from my mistakes and being happy within myself…”

“Taking initiative & action to pursue something I desire.”

“Learning to accept who you are as a person or deciding to better yourself until you do.”

“You are sitting on a silent beach, golden grains of sand caressing your feet. You’re looking at the flaming horizon and the silky surface of the sea. And the sun is casting upon the stillness of the water the warmth of its vibrant light. You take a pebble and throw it in the water. At the point of contact, circles form and expand. They move outward, each circle larger than the one before it. They’re like small waves that change, for the period of their ephemeral passing, the surface of the Sea. That’s what personal growth looks like. Ripples moving outward, waves of impact growing their circumference, before becoming, once again, one with the Universe. Ripples moving with a wavelength that is unique to the initial contact, you’re coming to the world. These ripples are your ever-growing potential to become more and to do more, to expand the limits of your comfort zone, to reach further and farther out, to change how the world looks throughout your ephemeral life on Earth. If we apply Maslow’s theory of motivation and pyramid of needs, ripples are needs going further up the pyramid until you reach self-actualization. If we think in terms of Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective people, ripples are the upward spiral of independence and interdependence. If we consider Travis Bradberry’s emotional intelligence, ripples are an increased understanding of one’s self and of others as well as a continuous improvement in self-management and relationship management. Whatever the idea, model or action, personal growth is the improvement we make across life experiences, in us and all around us, that expands our circle of life. Thank you, Isabella Gura, for trusting me with an answer. And hey reader! If you’re here, you might as well be interested in my blog, PERSED, focused on personal education and growth. Check it and tell me what you think! I welcome comments and feedback with an open heart.”

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